As I mentioned in my introduction to this practice, following it does not require any understanding of astrology or even believe in it. I myself am drawn to astrology as an ancient wisdom tradition and enjoy learning more about it. I love that it has been studied for thousands of years and that it speaks so much about our psyche.
One of my teachers when it comes to astrology, is Chani Nicholas. I listen to her weekly analyses via the CHANI app and often pick up her book You Were Born For This. The notes I am about to share on the sign Aquarius are based on both the app and the book.
I am taking these notes purely out of interest and curiosity. This practice for me is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the signs that have always been foreign to me. Aquarius is one of them. I have never really established a relationship with it, perhaps because I do not have any planets there in my natal chart.
I wonder if understanding Aquarius a little better will shed some light on the themes in my third house. More specifically: do the qualities of this sign show in the way I approach my daily life, my communication and in the way I relate to my sister and close friends? And if so, which of those qualities are helpful and which require some counterweight?
Should you ever wish to counterbalance the qualities of a sign, an interesting place to look for inspiration is 180° further in the sky. That is where you will find the opposite properties. Where Capricorn tends to enjoy solitude, Cancer seeks to create bonds. Where Libra is all about harmony and relationships, Aries puts the self first. And indeed, Leo, the sign opposite Aquarius can help us understand what ‘the water bearer’ is not. More on that later.
First, let’s look at Aquarius itself. Like any sign, it has a modality and an element. The modality speaks to what it is there to do. This can either be to initiate (cardinal signs), to stabilise (fixed signs) or to break down and create space for something new (mutable signs) to be initiated, then stabilised etcetera.
The elements tell us something about the temperament of a sign and whether it functions via inspiration (fire), practicality (earth), communication (air) or emotion (water).
Aquarius, despite its name, is an air sign. It carries water, but does not live near or in it, like crabs, scorpions or fish. As an air sign, it is all about communication. It is also a fixed sign, which means we are looking at communication in a solid form: well-developed ideas, articulated in a self-assured way, as Chani Nicholas puts it. Aquarius is the sign of intellect, thought and vision.
In astrology, signs are connected to planets. Each of the traditional planets, the ones that were known in ancient times, has two signs where it feels at home (domicile), two where it feels uncomfortable (detriment), one where it struggles to do what it is good at (fall) and one where it works with ease (exaltation).
In a recent astrological forecast, Chani Nicholas spoke about Aquarius and its relationship to the planets and luminaries. There are no planets exalted or in their fall in this sign, but there is a lot to learn from looking at Saturn and the Sun. The first is at home in Aquarius, the second not at all. The paragraphs below are based on my notes from the podcast.
In Aquarius season, in the Northern hemisphere at least, the Sun is the dimmest. It is cold as we are distant from the solar heat. In astrology, the Sun represents the self, the divine mind, the source of energy and the persona. When it is in Aquarius, it is in a place that is foreign to it. It is said to be in its detriment.
To ancient astrologers, Saturn was where the Universe ended. It was the furthest planet known, far away from us and from the Sun. In the traditional system, Saturn is the ruler of both Capricorn and Aquarius, the signs of the Northern winter months.
At great distance from the Sun, the Moon and the Earth, Saturn is the outlier. And this is the archetype that Aquarius represents. It is the sign of the outcasts and rebels, those on the outskirts looking in. They are taking in the entirety of the scene. They live on the margins, the thresholds, they are not intertwined with the rest of things.
The contrarian is an important archetype. Not really interested in what is happening nor in being accepted at the core of the group, they can go against the grain. They are way more interested in having perspective and seeing things with a very large lens, an all-encompassing kind of view. Aquarius wants to know how the systems work. And you cannot understand how the system works if you are right up in the guts of something. You have to move away in order to have a greater understanding.
Where Leo, 180° opposite, focuses on the group and being witnessed, Aquarius tends to depend less on attention and other people. There can be a certain coolness and aloofness to it, also because it is more at home in the mind than in the realm of emotions. The challenge and invitation to this sign is therefore to connect to the wisdom of the heart. Or as Chani Nicholas puts it: Your work is to learn how to create space for your own emotional experience and to value your body, heart and soul as much as your mind and intellect.
Now, let’s return to the questions I started this post with: do the qualities of this sign show in the way I approach my daily life, my communication and in the way I relate to my sister and close friends? And if so, which of those qualities are helpful and which require some counterweight?
Well, yes. The qualities certainly show. When I wrote the inventories, I had very little understanding of Aquarius, but it makes me smile to see quite how much of what is in the notes above can be found in my earlier posts.
Writing about my daily life, I observed that ‘a very large part of my daily activities involve thinking and mental effort’. The daily rituals I am looking to implement are meant to ‘help me be more present and put my physical self first, look after it with extra care and give it all the love and nourishment that it deserves and needs.’ Not only the body, but also the heart and soul are part of the plan: ‘I am keen to incorporate a more spiritual form of meditation and a gratitude practice into my days.’
When looking at the way I relate to my sister and close friends, I expressed the wish to, essentially, be less reserved and cool: ‘I would love for this gentle, soft and calm me to be there much more often,’ I said. To which I should add that I am already warm, caring, not afraid of my emotions and very open. From an astrological perspective, this is where other placements in my natal chart are at play, such as the Moon in Pisces and my ascendants ruler, Jupiter, in Leo. In time, I have already become much less distant and aloof than I was at a younger age, but I still welcome more gentleness and presence.
And then there’s communication. Essential to both the third house and Aquarius. Communication is also central in my professional life: it is one of the ways I make my living: writing, editing, translating, speaking, teaching… In my review on these activities, I noted: ‘I have come to realise how important it is for me to express my own voice and creativity. It will be good to consider the amount of creative space I am given before taking on a new project.’
When you look through the lens of Aquarius, the outsider looking in, the sign ruled by the distant planet of boundaries, it is no wonder that I do my best work when there is distance and freedom. When there is space for me to come up with my own creative solutions. This aquarian influence is not one that I feel I need to balance out. In fact, I want to honour it even more than I have done so far.
In the final part of my inventory, I mentioned that a large number of the contacts and connections I have on social media and in my email address book are people who do not really know me or whom I know that well. For a long time, those contacts were a validation of sorts. I established these connections about ten years ago when I was looking for work in my home country after I had been living abroad for a few years. Reconnecting gave me a sense of belonging to a ‘world’, a work environment that seemed very creative, visionary and forward moving.
All the while, I was trying to ignore that this ‘world’ actually offers very little space for creative solutions and has a rather hierarchical and conservative structure. And that this environment is simply not where I do my best work.
Doing my best work actually often involves putting the ‘contrarian’ qualities to use. Whether I am coaching individual clients or teams in organisations, I will always take in the entire scene, analyse where things are at, where the unused potential lies, what part of the chaos is interesting and useful, what part can do with a tidy up. In her app, Chani Nicholas said:
Having Aquarius in House III tells us that you are able to travel to the margins, the outskirts, to take yourself out of what is popular and conceptualise something that the system needs, that the collective needs or that people need. Something no one else can get to because they are too enmeshed in the conversation that is the most gripping at the moment.
There is something about Aquarius that helps us do just this thing: to go away and think about all the facts that you have gathered and see how you can best put them together.
This is indeed what I tend to do. When I speak to clients, I sometimes describe it as a ‘catalyst’ function. I will work with them for a while, stir things up, get things moving… and then I leave. The analogy I tend to use in private, is with Mary Poppins, who, as a friend pointed out, ‘is not part of the family’. He is right and in all honesty, not being part of the family is not always easy.
However, there are many families to belong to. And not being part of one, does not make you unwelcome in others. I feel very grateful for the close friends who are my chosen family. And I know they support me in further developing that sense of belonging within myself.
One final note on communication: not being ‘enmeshed in the conversation that is the most gripping at the moment’ as Chani Nicholas puts it, indeed suits me fine. From time to time I have taken some distance from the news and media, simply to not overload my system with information. Now that this practice is helping me to feel more relaxed and grounded, it is actually becoming a conscious decision. I do not fear missing out. The same goes for social media. I only use What’s App, but am no longer using Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIN for personal communication. As a publicist for a few cultural organisations, I still have to use these media from time to time, but soon I should be able to delegate these tasks to others. That is something I really look forward to.
I have heard it said that understanding the placements in your natal chart can help you work with it rather than against it. Now that I know more about Aquarius, I can draw strength from its outlier qualities in those areas where I need it (work, media, social media). And I can balance its mental focus and coolness in other areas (family, friends, daily life) by allowing my heart, body and spirit to join the conversation more often.
My rising sign 